Agentic AI is a buzzword, at least across the tech industry. And while those sometimes don’t translate to applications in everyday life, email AI agents certainly do. And even more certainly, they will be essential in ecommerce experiences, both in the near and distant future.

So, in laymens’ terms . . . What is agentic email AI? And how will it impact the future of email marketing, in particular?

First, a definition: Agentic AI is artificial intelligence that has the ability to make decisions and take actions on its own, almost in a way that mimics human autonomy. This type of decision making AI is not just reacting to inputs though; it actively decides what to do next without needing step-by-step instructions. Think of it as an AI that can “think” and “act” with a sense of purpose toward achieving a goal.

Of course, as with most AI technologies, early adopters of AI email agents will benefit the most. And those forward-thinking email marketing pros who blend their own know-how and creativity with the powerhouse of data-driven decisions AI email agents provide will, simply, win. 

Here’s how.

What Successes Can an Email AI Agent Deliver?

The current state of agentic email AI growth and success are pretty incredible:

• It’s rapidly growing: Agentic AI's market value is expected to grow $42 billion by 2030, with a compound annual growth rate of over 44%
• You’ve already used it: 54% of companies are already employing conversational AI—like customer service chatbots—that include agentic AI components.
• It’s already helping you make decisions. According to Gartner, 15% of day-to-day business decisions already involve agentic AI.

Beyond adoption metrics and bottom-line numbers, email AI agents are making a positive impact for marketers on a personal level too!

• It makes you a stronger creative. 38% of workers report that AI agents boost their creativity. This number will likely grow and grow.
• It makes you more productive. AI agents contribute to a 40% improvement in productivity by handling routine and data-intensive tasks. (More on that in a minute!)
• Agentic AI improves marketing impact. AI agents help optimize marketing campaigns, leading to a 20-30% increase in conversion rates through better-targeting.

Sounds like a good deal, right? With these success metrics in mind, let’s see how it’s impacting email marketing jobs, projects, workloads, and success outcomes today and tomorrow.

What Do AI Email Agents Do Today?

In today’s email marketing landscape, there are three core areas that agentic, decision making AI is transforming.

Email Personalization Is Boosted By AI Email Agents

Think about everything you track in email marketing campaigns—opens, clicks, purchasing behavior, what makes the most effective email subject lines, and so on. Agentic AI analyzes all that customer data and more. 

Rather than reviewing all of that data manually, and deciding on how to apply it to future campaigns, email AI agents make real-time decisions on what types of content to offer subscribers, based on what data says they’re most likely to engage with.

For example: If Tyler clicked on Product A in past emails, agentic AI would prioritize showing him similar products—or even recommend a new item he hasn't seen yet—that’ll likely strike his fancy!

Decision Making AI Automates Workflows

Let’s revisit the concept of manually reviewing data and using it to inform your decision making. Email marketing teams can apply email AI agents to free up their time by automating different types of tasks and workflows.

Instead of setting up all campaigns and nurturing journeys to follow a strict, pre-set path, agentic AI can dynamically adjust send times, subject lines, and offers based on ongoing results.

For example: If an email promoting a limited-time sale is under-performing, your AI email agent can alter its subject line, body copy, or images on-the-fly to improve engagement.

Customer Journeys Are Optimized With Agentic Email AI 

Speaking of engaging customers, there are ways that agentic email AI automatically steers subscribers in the direction most likely to push them to engage with your content.

For example: Let’s say a subscriber named Allyson starts interacting with 15% discount content, rather than “this weekend only” style offers. If deployed, email AI agents would adjust the frequency and type of follow-up emails she receives, pushing her more favorable offers at all her optimal times. Ultimately, this creates a tailored email journey for each individual shopper, without marketers having to do so much manual labor.

How Will Decision Making AI Shape the Future of Email?

On the consumer side, resisting the temptation to shop via email may become a whole lot more difficult! This is especially true as all ages—and most demographics—check email for retail content on the regular.

From the email marketing perspective, particularly for those in the retail and ecommerce spaces, agentic AI will ignite more competition at the hands of hyper-personalized consumer experiences.

• Email personalization will get more advanced. As decision making AI continues to learn from interactions, it could eventually predict not just what a customer might want, but what they will want in the future. This would lead to hyper-personalized email marketing. Campaigns could be sent automatically, anticipating future purchasing behavior or interests before the customer explicitly shows them.
• Testing and experimentation will get smarter. Agentic email AI could continuously optimize email campaigns by running multiple variations at once, learning from which strategies work best in real time. Rather than A/B testing being a slow, manual process, email AI agents could take over, constantly tweaking campaigns for optimal results.
• Email segmentation will improve too. Segmentation has been a best practice for a while now, but implementing agentic email AI could help marketers identify micro-segments within their email lists. These will be groups of people with extremely specific behaviors or preferences, whom we can tailor emails to on an individual level.

At the end of the day, there is potential to take email marketing, personalization, and customer experiences to new levels that are hard—and sometimes downright impossible—to achieve manually. 

But before you go worrying about whether all of this innovation will take your job, go ahead and get some reassurance from our CEO & Founder in his guide: Will AI Take My Job? Kinda. But Here’s Why AI for Email Marketing is Still a Good Thing!